Morgan

“What would I have to do to get another twenty students to pass?”

“I already explained that you need to make me an offer.”

Morgan buried her head in her hands. There had been some developments earlier in her negotiations, but now she was going in circles! The terminal, as it turned out, was being controlled by an Educator, and that it was these Educators who were conducting the test. Furthermore, she had discovered that this terminal was intended for making a trade of sorts with the Educators. The nature of the trade was what eluded Morgan.

Having one of the Educators decide to call her meus and speak voice to voice—on loudspeaker, of course, since her meus remained docked in the desk—had made the whole ordeal bearable. At least there was a human voice on the other end, and that the educator was what she described as a relaxed individual. Morgan had always preferred speaking to Educators over other students as they tended not to concern themselves with pointless details about her. This particular man was possibly the most patient individual that Morgan had ever met—unlike whoever it was that Lumia was doing combat with earlier.

She let out a long, agonised groan. Think, Morgan. What could you give to the Educators? What is available for trade? No, that is exactly the problem! I am a student, participating in a test set by the very same Educators who I wish to trade with. There is nothing I can give them.

“How about this,” the Educator said. Morgan’s head shot up and she gave the Educator her full attention. “I will allow everyone to complete their tests by answering only nineteen questions, but I get to fail… how about, thirty students. Of my choosing.”

Morgan settled back in her chair. “Can they be students that have already passed?”

“Nobody has passed yet,” the Educator stated.

She knew that—it was a slip of the tongue. This Educator had made it abundantly clear to her that a student needed to be unlocked from their desk at the end of the test in order to pass. The test had been dragging on so long that Morgan was beginning to feel fatigued, and these minor slip ups were evidence of that.

“Yes, obviously,” she replied. “What I meant was, will you be failing students whose meuses have already been released.”

“Accept the deal and you’ll find out.”

Okay, it was a breakthrough, but not in the direction she wanted it to go. She was uncomfortable about guaranteeing failure for some students, but it appeared that failing students was an acceptable form of credit—and the only bargaining chip she was aware of. What other choice did she have?

“Can we make a deal that the students you fail are only those who are still locked into their terminals?”

“We can,” the Educator replied with a cautious tone, “but you’ll need to offer more students for failure.”

“How about thirty-five?”

The Educator chuckled. “Try fifty.”

“Fifty!” Morgan cried. “If you fail that many students then you may as well fail the entire class.”

“Well, that I can’t do.”

Morgan hesitated at that, realising it was valuable information. She tucked the thought away for later use. “How about this: can you allow a number of students to skip a question and in exchange you can fail thirty of your choosing? But the skipping has to be verified by me, on this terminal,” Morgan added, remembering that this was the only terminal she could use on account of her having broken rule zero by speaking.

She had not meant to talk earlier, and she still had no idea what had come over her. At the time she was certain that the Educators were trying to fail them on purpose. Worse, that this test was some grandiose method of bullying her, along with the rest of the students. In hindsight, it was stupid. Still, she could not believe that Lumia’s answer—if one would call it that—had succeeded in granting them access to the terminal. She could not believe Lumia had said that!

“That depends on the number of students you skip,” the Educator replied.

Morgan paused. None of these negotiations would be successful if she helped the incorrect number of students. She needed a minimum.

“Can you give me a minute, please?” she said.

“Don’t take too long. You have nineteen minutes left.”

Morgan’s throat tightened as a wave of panic struck her. No, don’t rush this. If you negotiate well then the time will not matter. She took a deep breath, then got up and dashed to the hatch that led up onto the stage. She mounted the ladder and was up in an instant, only to be plunged into deeper darkness.

Her speed had cost her: as she stood, her head spun for a few seconds and she had to stumble away from the manhole for fear of falling in. Once the spinning stopped, however, she was horrified by what she saw.

Absolutely nothing had changed in the entire time she had been under the stage. Students still sat around chatting or otherwise remained idle at their desks. Some had maintained their discipline and continued to answer questions, but most seemed not to care at all. The few who were released used their meuses as torches for their classmates.

What is happening? I specifically asked Morgan to get the lights back on and try to get things under control. What is she doing?

Morgan did not have to look hard to spot her. Lumia was standing below the control room. She was pointing her meus’ torchlight towards the large window and using her hand to cover and release the torch in a rhythmic, blinking pattern.

Does she not know that there is an option for that in her meus’ torchlight settings? Seriously!

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Frustrated, Morgan trotted over to Lumia, ignoring the few students that still raised their hands upon noticing her presence. When she was within earshot of Lumia, she shouted, “Why are the lights not on?”

Lumia spun to face her. For a zeptosecond her eyebrows were raised and her mouth hung agape, but then that expression vanished and was replaced with a smile. “Oh, Morgan, I’m so glad you’re here. As you can see, the situation is unclear. Though I’ve been working hard to harness his attention, Leo hasn’t seemed to notice—”

“I understand so stop talking like that,” Morgan cut her off. She held out a hand. “Give me your meus.”

Lumia observed Morgan’s hand, then looked at her meus. After a brief yet unnecessarily long hesitation, she finally dropped the device in Morgan’s hand. Working rapidly, Morgan pulled up the torchlight settings and typed a message into an input box: TURN LIGHTS ON. The torchlight started flashing in morse code.

Handing the meus back to Lumia, she said, “Keep trying.”

Morgan hesitated when she noticed that Lumia had blood smeared on her chin. Morgan tried not to think about it. Not giving Lumia a chance to speak, or chance to explain why she was covered in blood, she strode off in search of Raphael.

Really, I am disappointed in her—and a little creeped out—but what else is she meant to do? If the lights are not turned on then regaining control of the class may be impossible. The only alternative is that Raphael puts everyone in their place.

Sighing, Morgan approached Raphael as he was assisting another student in their test. She could not help but feel gratitude towards him, and a little jealousy. People listened to him. What did she have to do to get people to do the same? It was frustrating!

“Raphael,” she called. He turned and raised an eyebrow. “How many students have passed—I mean, been released?”

Raphael paused and scanned the room, taking his time to do so. Morgan’s jaw tightened as she counted the seconds tick by. Finally he gave an answer. “Forty-one, I think. Oh, wait, I’ve failed. So forty.” His eyes drew taut and he stared into the distance.

It was not enough, not even close to enough for Morgan to feel comfortable. Though she was still holding out hope that many of the students were simply slow, the amount of chatter throughout the room gave her little confidence. She asked the next question, and dreaded to hear the answer. “Suppose we could remove a question from everyone’s test. How many do you think could be released?”

Again Raphael hesitated. His face twisted and he lowered his head. “I’m not sure. There are a lot of people struggling, some tests are more difficult than others, a lot of students have talked—”

“Just give an answer,” Morgan snapped. “I don’t care how inaccurate it is.”

His dark eyes settled upon her and gleamed in the flashing torchlight. “Maybe ten.”

Morgan’s vision blurred a little and she rubbed her eyes. Her heart thumped in her chest. It is nowhere near enough. I need a different approach. Then ruefully she considered, Did the Educator know of this before offering the trade?

She took a deep breath and tried to relax. Whatever the reason, Morgan had to focus on her own response and not worry about the Educators. She thanked Raphael, then sprinted back down the manhole and reclaimed her seat, bathing in the glow that emanated from the terminal’s screen.

“Okay, this deal will not work,” Morgan puffed, catching her breath. “Is it possible to release ten students instead and fail thirty?”

“Welcome back, and no.”

No embellishment, no explanation. Morgan found that strange given how candid the Educator had been so far. She decided to push him. “How about five releases?”

“Nope.”

“Why?” she asked cautiously.

“How about this,” the Educator said. “I can remove rule zero for you so that students won’t fail for speaking. In exchange, I’ll only ask for twenty failures. Good deal, right?”

It was an incredible deal. However, the Educator’s omission hadn’t escaped Morgan. He had avoided explaining why he could not release any students, then pivoted to a deal that was, all things considered, way better for Morgan than just releasing five students. She divided those facts up into two separate problems: one, why couldn’t the Educators release students, and two, why would removing rule zero cost less failures than removing a question from everyone’s test? She decided to find their answers individually.

Morgan straightened her back and clasped her hands on top of the desk. “What if I only wanted to release one student? Say, Raphael. We are acquaintances and I would be disappointed if he failed. You can then fail thirty students in return. Would that be acceptable?”

“Nope.” Again, no explanation.

“Can you release any students?”

Silence. The Educator may as well have screamed the answer.

“Then that leads me to a conclusion,” Morgan stated, now smiling. “The purpose of this terminal is to change a rule.”

There was a brief silence. Then quietly, as though speaking away from a microphone, “Hey, Arthur, give her ten points.”

Faintly in the background, a gruff voice answered, “I told you not to reveal the scores to the students.”

“Sorry, sorry,” replied the first Educator, almost laughing.

Morgan’s jaw dropped. Scores? They are scoring us? Are these scores the real pass criteria? If that is so, and we can receive points for guessing about the true nature of the test—at least, that is what I presume the reason is—then what exactly is this test supposed to grade? Us? Our ability to navigate this test, or to infer information and act accordingly? She drummed her fingers on the top of the desk. There is only one way to find out.

“Very well, then I would like to change a rule.” Morgan took a deep breath and mentally braced herself for whatever potential fallout would emerge from her next act. “I would like you to remove rule zero, and in exchange, I will fail.”

The reply was instant. “Nope.”

It all clicked into place. The strange test conditions, the administrators, the hints given to those who finished their questions sooner, the suggestions in the hall about entering Class Euripides. There were the elite, and then there was everyone else. Of course the Educators did not wish for the elite students to fail: they were prospective members of Plato’s most prestigious class. Of course they offered to remove rule zero: one of those elite students was definitely Raphael, given that he had answered more questions than any other student, and removing rule zero meant he could pass. This test was not for accepting students into King’s College, it was how the Educators separated students into classes.

A smile creeped onto Morgan’s face, then stiffened as she tried to contain her excitement.

“Allow me to rephrase,” Morgan said with a voice shaking with excitement. “I am not asking you to fail me. Rather, I am saying that if you do not change the rules, I will fail myself.”

“Oh?” the Educator replied. Morgan could almost hear the glee in his voice. “Well if you don’t want to pass we can’t force you to.”

“Not just I, but Raphael will fail too, should nothing change. And in fact, I will ask Lumia to join me in this endeavour.”

“I doubt she would do that.”

“You do? After that outburst from before, you would still trust your judgement of her?”

The Educator gave no response. Almost there. Just one more push.

“Fine. Since you do not wish to accept my offer, I will go back to my original offer: release the students of our choosing.” She leaned towards her meus and lowered her voice. “But can you imagine that? A test which nobody passes and all the best students willingly fail. It would be a shame if all of the students’ grades got so muddled. In fact, it would defeat the purpose of conducting this test, would it not?”

A long silence. Morgan held her breath, awaiting the answer. She wanted to keep talking but knew that was a terrible idea—one of the many gems she had acquired from her last secondary school was the power of silence. Say nothing, and people can and will assume anything they want.

The Educator finally replied. “Let’s say that last bit is true and I really don’t want you to fail. Even if I wanted to release a few students, we’ve already established that I can’t.”

It paid off! Morgan delivered the final blow. “No, you cannot, but there is someone who can.”

There was a silence that stretched on for an eternity. Morgan’s heart pounded, from fear, from excitement, from the possibility that this whole nightmare may soon be over. She let out a breath when the Educator finally responded.

“Hey, Arthur. Give her another twenty points.”